Franz Kafka, Prague Austria-Hungary, European Authors | Literary Traveler Literary Traveler On Franz Kafka’s Trail Posted on July 1, 2002 By David Strum It’s no wonder people get confused about Franz Kafka’s nationality. A Czech Jew who wrote in German, Kafka was a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at birth in 1883 and a citizen of the newly minted nation of Czechoslovakia at his death in 1924. But no matter what flags were flying overhead, there was one constant: Prague. Kafka was born, raised and educated from grammar school through law school in Prague. He wrote his stories, wooed his girlfriends, suffered through his tuberculosis and spent his entire professional career as an insurance lawyer in the city. He died in a sanatorium near Vienna, but his body was returned for burial in Prague’s New Jewish Cemetery in Olsanske. In fact, Kafka and his canon cannot be fully appreciated outside the context of Prague. Although his fictional works like the Metamorphosis and The Trial seem abstract and deracinated, distilled from universal subconscious impulses and fears, they are actually deeply rooted in Prague’s tumultuous history and ancient Jewish storytelling traditions.

Old Town Square was Kafka’s front yard. “Kafka absorbed all Prague’s humours and poisons and descended into its demonic nature,” according to Angelo Maria Ripellino in his book Magic Prague. Prague’s Old Town was Kafka’s lifelong neighborhood and the spacious Old Town Square was literally his front yard for much of his life. Once inscribing a perimeter around a map of Old Town, Kafka said, “This narrow circle encompasses my entire life. On the perimeter of that “narrow circle” is Namesti Republiky (Republic Square), located on the edge of Old Town, reachable by the 5, 14 and 26 trams or the B (yellow) Metro line. Less than a block up Na Porici from the square, in the direction of the tram tracks, is a white building with a green dome across from the YMCA. It’s the Worker’s Accident Insurance Company of the Kingdom of Bohemia, where Kafka worked from 1908 to 1922. The firm’s name can be seen chiseled in the stone in Czech just above the 5th floor windows. Kafka was one of two token Jews employed at this firm.

He conducted studies of how workplace accidents happen, recommending new safety devices and procedures to prevent on-the-job injuries, particularly in the lumber industry. His work was well respected and he was recommended for a medal. Each working day for 14 years Kafka would leave this office, carrying an umbrella and briefcase, and proceed down Na Porici to Namesti Republiky, where he would cross to the black gothic hulk called the Powder Tower. Along the way he would pass the spectacular art nouveau Obecni Dum (Municipal House), which was under construction from 1905-1911 while Kafka was a university student. Now renovated, Obecni Dum appears much as it did in Kafka’s day. From the Powder Tower, Kafka would head up Celetna, one of Prague’s oldest streets. Celetna these days is a pedestrian mall, usually crowded with tourists and lined with tony restaurants and souvenier shops. But in Kafka’s day these shops sold baked goods, meats, clothing and hardware. Just before Celetna opens into Old Town Square there are two houses that face each other across the street, Celetna 3 and Celetna 2.

The former, called the House of the Three Kings, is where the Kafka family lived from 1896-1907. Kafka had his first room to himself here and wrote his first story here. Downstairs was the fancy-goods shop of Kafka’s father, Hermann Kafka, specializing in items like canes, parasols and knitwear. Kafka’s room was in the back at Celetna 3 and looked directly out onto the imposing Tyn Church with its two towers bristling like missile batteries with spires. Author Ivana Edwards believes Tyn is what Kafka had in mind in The Trial when he described a cathedral of such size it “bordered on the limits of scale that human beings could bear.” The literary salon of Kafka, Brod and Werfel. After Celetna 2, called Sixt House, a childhood home of Kafka from 1888-89, Celetna opens into the square. Only 30 meters from Celetna 2 is the Unicorn Apothecary building (note the sculpture of a child with a unicorn on the facade).

It was here that Kafka, often accompanied by writing friends Max Brod and Franz Werfel, attended Prague’s only literary salon, which was hosted by arts patron Berta Fanta, whose husband owned the pharmacy downstairs (in later years, Albert Einstein was also a salon regular while he was a young physics professor in Prague). Across the south side of the square and past the Old Town Hall, where the crowds gather hourly to watch the parade of plaster saints on the astronomical clock, is the Minuta House. The building’s elaborate sgraffito depicting allegories from Greek Mythology make it hard to miss. Kafka lived here from 1889 to 1896 while attending the German Primary School for Boys on Masna. The best view of the hourly show on the astronomical clock, incidentally, can be had from the second-floor Cafe Milena, directly opposite the clock face. Named after the one true love in Kafka’s life (he never married) and run by the Franz Kafka Society of Prague, it’s an excellent vantage and an oasis of serenity above the crowded square. Crossing to the north side of the square (retracing the steps Kafka took each day to school), St.

Nicholas Church with its twin baroque towers looms into view. The white stone building on the corner of the square opposite the church, however, is what deserves attention. This is the Oppelt House, where Kafka lived during the First World War (his poor health exempted him from being drafted). Kafka had a room looking directly out on St. Nicholas. The downstairs now houses a restaurant called U Masinu offering upscale Czech cuisine. On the west side of St. Nicholas Church is a small side square called U Radnice. Here, nestled right next to the church, is Kafka’s birthplace, at U Radnice 5. It is now home to the Franz Kafka Exposition, a modest museum to the writer. For an entrance fee of 20 crowns (about 50 cents) the visitor can peruse permanent exhibits that include photos of Kafka and his family, artifacts of Jewish life in Prague, a map of Kafka-related sites and a timeline of his life. Most interesting is a display of first editions, including a 1916 edition of the Metamorphosis, one of the few of his books published in his lifetime.

A counter in the little museum sells books on and by Kafka, a bust of his head and coffee mug on which the writer’s gaunt face stares intently back. The Ghosts of the Jewish Ghetto: Just west of the museum entrance, at the intersection of Maiselova and U Radnice, is Prague’s only bust of Kafka. It gazes out into the square from a perch on the corner of the building. From this intersection, Maiselova leads north straight into the heart of the city’s ancient Jewish quarter (None of the museums, synagogues or cemetery in this section are open on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath). Sadly, only vestiges are left of this extraordinary neighborhood, which profoundly influenced Kafka. “In us all it still lives — the dark corners, the secret alleys, the shuttered windows, the squalid courtyards, the rowdy pubs, the sinister inns,” he wrote of the ghetto. In 1893, Prague launched a massive “hygienic” urban renewal which swept away nearly all of these “secret alleys” to make room for posh French-style boulevards like Parizska (Paris Street).

On the east side of Maiselova, north of Siroka (where sits the Franz Kafka Cafe, a pub that merely appropriates his name), is the pink Jewish Town Hall, the civic hub for Prague’s Jews since the baroque era. The tower of this building contains the famous Hebrew clock whose hands turn backward. Next door to the town hall is the storied Alt-Neu Synagogue with its sinister-looking sawtoothed roofline. The heart of Jewish life in Prague for 700 years, it’s the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the world. In 1389, a crazed mob chased hundreds of Jews into this synagogue during a pogrom and massacred them. Their bloodstains were preserved on the wall for 500 years. According to one of Prague’s old Jewish legends, a sealed-off room in the attic of the Alt-Neu contains the remains of the Golem, the Jewish Frankenstein of the medieval ghetto. Kafka, who attended Alt-Neu, knew these stories and a hundred more.

U Stareho Hrbitova, opposite the town hall and Alt-Neu, leads to one of Prague’s most popular attractions, the Old Jewish Cemetery, which the Jews call the Garden of the Dead (Here is also a box office that sells tickets to most of the sites in the Jewish quarter, including the cemetery). Because Jews were forbidden burial outside the ghetto, all of Prague’s Jews were buried here, a site no bigger than two or three tennis courts, from 1439 to 1787. The dead, estimated at up to 100,000, are beneath your feet in layers 12 deep. The 12,000 tombstones crammed onto the heaving earth lean crazily in every direction. It’s a moving and unforgettable sight. From the cemetery, Brehova leads to tree-lined Parizska and the modern Hotel Intercontinental at the north end of Parizska. Next to the hotel, on the plaza containing the ring of flagpoles, is the site of a demolished building where Kafka lived from 1907 to 1913.

It was here, in a third-floor room that had a view of the river and the toll bridge crossing it, that Kafka wrote the Metamorphosis. “I would stand at the window for long periods,” he wrote in his diary in 1912, “and was frequently tempted to amaze the toll collector on the bridge below by my plunge.” Across the river, in the castle district, are two other Kafka sites worth noting, including the tiny house on at 22 Golden Lane in the shadow of St. Vitus Cathedral where he lived with a sister while writing and the Schonborn Palace on Trziste in Mala Strana (now the United States Embassy) where he lived briefly. To visit his grave, take the A (green) Metro line east to Zelivskeho station and, after exiting the Metro station, head north on Jana Zelivskeho to the entrance of the New Jewish Cemetery (men are asked to cover their heads). Here, about 300 meters along the path to the right, is the two-meter obelisk marking the gravesites of Franz Kafka and his parents.

Kafka’s grave has no epitaph, but here’s what his lover, Milena Jesenska, wrote a few days after his death: “He wrote the most significant works of modern German literature, which reflect the irony and prophetic vision of a man condemned to see the world with such blinding clarity that he found it unbearable and went to his death.” %banner300% Franz Kafka - Biography and Works. Search Texts, Read Online. Discuss. Franz Kafka Biography of Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Czech-born German writer is best known for his short story Metamorphosis (1912) and the widespread familiarity of the literary term Kafkaesque, inspired by his nightmarishly complex and bizarre yet absurd and impersonal short stories. Franz Kafka was born 3 July, 1883 in Prague, Bohemia, now the Czech Republic, into a Jewish middle-class, German speaking family; his mother Julie, (nï¿½e Lï¿½wy), three younger sisters and his successful merchant father Hermann. Hermann owned a shop below where the family lived in Prague's House of the Three Kings.

He was ill-tempered and disrespectful towards his son's escape into literature and pursuit of writing and proved to be an on-going source of conflict and despair in many of Kafka's works. Kafka became the eldest and only son when his two brothers died in infancy and he was excruciatingly aware of this role in the family for the rest of his life. Kafka rebelled against his father's materialism and often wrote metaphorically of the struggle to overcome a dismayingly gargantuan, overpowering and practically suffocating force, much like his own timid and shy self in relation to his father. His Letter to Father (1919), never sent, is a plaintive attempt to explain his fear of and estrangement from his father and attempt to end the unceasing reproaches he received, as being the eldest son, he felt to be such a disappointment to his father. Kafka's was visionary fiction, addressing three decades ahead of time the anxieties and change of the 20th century.

While surrounded by some of the literati of the time such as Franz Werfel, he was isolated from the German community in Prague and he wrote of the ghetto before the urban renewal and rebuilding: "In us all it still lives -- the dark corners, the secret alleys, the shuttered windows, the squalid courtyards, the rowdy pubs, the sinister inns." Kafka was also alienated from his own heritage by his parent's perfunctory religious practice and minimal social formality in the Jewish community, though his style and influence is sometimes attributed to Jewish folk lore. Kafka eventually declared himself a socialist atheist, Spinoza, Darwin and Nietzsche some of his influences. In 1902 Kafka met Max Brod who would become his translator, supporter and most intimate friend. Kafka entered the German University in Prague in 1901 to study German literature and law, receiving his doctorate in 1906. Kafka was to lead a relatively inauspicious life, an exemplary employee with the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute in Prague from 1907 to 1922.

He would finally gain renown posthumously upon Max Brod's publication of his three major works, The Trial (1925) and The Castle in 1926 and Amerika (1927). Kafka's oeuvre is often filled with black humour in the style of parable, meditations, poetic fragments, and sketches. Though his works are often open to multiple interpretations, causing difficulty categorising his work in any single genre, existentialism and modernism are among them. In 1911, Kafka was to spend his first of many curative periods in sanatoriums and spas for ill health. In 1912 he met and became engaged to Felice Bauer from Berlin. In 1912 he finished Metamorphosis his best-known short story, a masterpiece of stunning psychological, sociological and existential angst. From his third-floor room with a view of the Vltava river and the toll bridge crossing it, Kafka worked on Metamorphosis.

"I would stand at the window for long periods," he wrote in his diary in 1912, "and was frequently tempted to amaze the toll collector on the bridge below by my plunge." He wrote Meditation in 1913, a collection of short prose pieces. In 1914 he finished Before the Law. In 1916 Kafka wrote The Judgement, directly reflecting his struggle with his father; the prophetic In the Penal Colony and A Country Doctor (1919), another collection of short prose. In 1917 Kafka broke his second engagement to Felice Bauer, most likely precipitated by his continued failure to cut ties with his domineering father and set forth in his own life to get married and settle down. He was also diagnosed with tuberculosis after years of poor health. In 1923, finally escaping his paternal family he went to Berlin to write exclusively. He wrote A Hunger Artist in 1924, four stories illustrating the concise and lucid style of Kafka's writing in his later years.

Kafka's lack of confidence and personal misgivings about his work caused him to request that all his unpublished manuscripts be destroyed, however his friend, biographer and literary executor Max Brod didn't obey his wishes and in 1925 he published The Trial, indisputably Kafka's most successful novel in it's dark exploration of anxiety, paranoia and persecution. Joseph K, the protagonist, unsuccessfully confronts arbitrary rules and a hopeless court system without knowing the crime with which he is guilty of. Brod also published The Castle (1926) a wide-sweeping metaphor of authority and bureaucracy and the search for grace and forgiveness and Amerika (1927) with a light and amusing angle but also an examination of the symbolic horrors of modern life. The Great Wall of China was published in 1931. 3 June 1924, Franz Kafka died from complications of tuberculosis in Kierling, near Vienna, Austria. His remains are buried alongside his parent's under a two-meter obelisk in Prague's New Jewish Cemetery in Olsanske.

There is no epitaph, but Milena Jesenska, his lover and Czech journalist and writer, a few days after his death wrote: "He wrote the most significant works of modern German literature, which reflect the irony and prophetic vision of a man condemned to see the world with such blinding clarity that he found it unbearable and went to his death." "Theoretically there is a perfect possibility of happiness: believing in the indestructible element in oneself and not striving towards it." Franz Kafka. Biography written by C.D. Merriman for Jalic Inc. Copyright Jalic Inc 2005. All Rights Reserved. The above biography is copyrighted. Do not republish it without permission. Forum Discussions on Franz Kafka Recent Forum Posts on Franz Kafka Kafka's A Hunger Artist Is this story a religious allegory or a story about the misunderstood artist? What is the significance of the panther who replaces the hunger artist in his cage? The 'art' of the hunger artist is something that he does alone, and apparently because he enjoys it? So why does he want an audience so desperately, as to die when he loses it? Thanks....

Posted By chevalierdelame in Kafka, Franz || 0 Replies 130 years after Kafka's birth Prelude Kafka was born on the third day of July, 1883, in Prague which was then the second most important city of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. His parents were jewish, and his father had immigrated from the czech countryside to the center of Bohemia when he was young, attempting with much strife to better his horrible financial conditions. This he did succeed in, and when Franz was born the family was already reasonably rich, which enabled him to study at good schools and then attend university. Although Franz first started studying Chemistry, half a month later he switched to Law, which allowed him to still keep being on the track his father seemed to have wanted, and at the same ti... Posted By Kyriakos in Kafka, Franz || 0 Replies The Franz Kafka museum in Prague During our holiday in Prague, I went to the Franz Kafka museum (husband wanted a walk instead :rolleyes:). Got the biographic thing with his father, but very intersting, going through the influences on his work. Very good conception of his works too, as well as good English translations.

Did you know Kafka was a Taoist? Even went as far as saying he thought in his heart he was really Chinese. Shame that the original Jewish quarter that apparently makes up the dreamy world with Venice-like streets and alleyways and delapidated partly medieval buildings of his books was knocked down in the greatest re-design of Prague ever. But there are still places left you can look at or go, such as the... Posted By kiki1982 in Kafka, Franz || 1 Reply How did Kafka influence German Culture?... Posted By German3 in Kafka, Franz || 1 Reply What is your favorite story by Franz Kafka? I believe i have read all which has been released up to now, fiction, diaries, letters. I used to love Kafka's work (still like it, but i have moved away from his influence). My favorite story by him probably is At the penal colony. It is one of the most detailed and violent works by him. His most classical work possibly is the Metamorphosis, one of the few books you can sum up in a sentence and still make an impression on someone who has not read it.

Other, less known tales i like include The Railway at Galda, The Torturer (it is only a few lines long) and Blumfeld: An elderly bachelor.... Posted By Kyriakos in Kafka, Franz || 2 Replies Did Kafka suffer from BDD? BDD (Body Dysmorphic Disorder) is a mental illness that causes one to see either entirely imagined uglyness in his form, or exagerate real flaws, to the point where it becomes difficult for him to function socially. A few notes in Kafka's diary seem to point to the direction that he might have had some variant of this illness. Also in at least one of his letters to Felice he claims that he is ugly, but that this might be just imaginary, and that she might even think he is beautiful. BDD could explain some of his tragic life, since it is associated with depression and even suicidal ideation.... Posted By Kyriakos in Kafka, Franz || 3 Replies Biblical Allusions in The Metamorphosis I read The Metamporphosis for the first time last night in one sitting, my first experience with Kafka. The story is compelling on many levels, and one that I noticed was Biblical.

Samsa's downfall, like that of Adam and Eve, is brought about by an apple. Also, didn't God condemn Adam and Eve to crawling on their bellies, eating dust, for the rest of their lives, much like an insect? When Samsa finally dies, towards the end of March (Easter), he is forsaken and driven away by his people, his family, as Jesus was. Who or what do the three lodgers represent? I am struggling to connect this theory. Am I simply reading too much into this? Are these references isolated incidents of sy... Posted By KilgoreT in Kafka, Franz || 7 Replies Does Gregor's relationship with his sister have undertones? There's parts on page 36 that seem like they might indicate that.... Posted By kelby_lake in Kafka, Franz || 14 Replies I'd argue expressionist but what are your thoughts?... Posted By kelby_lake in Kafka, Franz || 3 Replies Finally ....a definitive English translation of Franz Kafka When I saw that my library had a new translation of Kafka's 'The Trial' on cd, I checked it out.

I love to listen to classics and others on cd, but 'The Trial' is not one to start with. However, I've read Kafka's novel twice before. So I started listening. The Introduction is given by the translater, Breon Mitchell. He explains that Kafka's friend, Max Brod, was left the task of destroying all Kafka's notes and unfinished novels, mainly 'Amerika', 'The Castle', and 'The Trial', at Kafka's death bed behest. But Max didn't do this. Instead he completed the novels and at the same time edited the finished chapters. From 1930, the translations of the Muirs were considered by most to be the defini... Posted By dfloyd in Kafka, Franz || 1 Reply Unseen Kafka Writings I'm looking forward to the publication of this story. Post here with updates regarding the publication of the manuscript. Does anyone have any knowledge of cases similar to this? How long did it take to publish those writings after they were discovered?...

Posted By TannerS in Kafka, Franz || 1 Reply FRANZ KAFKA: Diaryï¿½s Partial Truth This prose-poem tries to place the diaries of Franz Kafka(1883 to 1924) in a personal perspective. Kafka was one of the most influential fiction writers of the early 20th century; a novelist and writer of short stories whose works came to be regarded as one of the major achievements of 20th century literature. The acknowledgement and fame he achieved came only after his death. His diaries were written between 1910 and 1923.-Ron Price with thanks to Wikipedia, 18 July 2010. My diaries, Franz, began in 1984 with their casual observations, their details of daily life, philosophical reflections, ideas, accounts of dreams, thoughts of stories and prose-poemsï¿½but they will not become... Posted By Ron Price in Kafka, Franz || 0 Replies Biography of Franz Kafka Franz Kafka 1883-1924 Despite his great impact on the literary world, Franz Kafka was a relatively "unknown" author during his life-time.

He published relatively few of his works, and those were published in very limited runs, or in small literary journals. Franz Kafka born in Prague , July 3, 1883, the son of Hermann and Julie Kafka. The oldest, he had three suriving younger sisters. Valli, Elli, and Ottla. His father was a self-made middle class Jewish merchant, who raised his children in the hopes of assimilating them into the mainstream society of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The official ruling language of the empire was German, so Franz attended German grammar school (Volksschule am Fleischmarkt), and later the German Gymnasium (Altstädter Deutsches Gymnasium). He finished his Doctorate of Law in Prague, studying at the German language University (Die deutsche Universität) there. He initially gained employment at a private insurance firm Assicurazioni Generali and then with the Arbeiter-Unfall-Versicherungs-Anstalt für das Königreichs Böhmen in Prag His Job at the Worker's Accident Insurance provided him with a steady income and "regular" office hours, so that he could dedicate his evenings to writing.

His diaries contain continuing accounts of his restlessness and sleeplessness as he would work all night writing, only to return to the office for the next day of work, throughly exhausted. Although he spoke and wrote Czech fluently throughout his life, his literary work was all completed in German. He is known to have started writing at an early age, but all of his earliest attempts were later destroyed. His first pulished work came in 1907, and he continued to publish throughout the next seventeen years, but most of his works were published posthumously by his friend Max Brod . Kafka's relationship to his father dominates all discussions of both his life and his work. See his Brief an den Vater to get a feel for the relationship between the thin, intellectual, and awkward Franz, and the robust, loud, and corporal Father. The ideas of "father" and "family" permeate the fabric of many of Kafka's texts, either directly as in Das Urteil or Die Verwandlung or more abstractly as in the cases of his two novels Der Proceß and Das Schloß (which remained unpublished during his lifetime).

Other Kafka-biography on the 'Net: Franz Kafka Franz Kafka Location of death: Kierling, Vienna, Austria Cause of death: Tuberculosis Remains: Buried, New Jewish Cemetery, Prague, Czechia Gender: Male Nationality: Austria Executive summary: Metamorphosis Franz Kafka is an icon of dark existentialist and absurdist literature who often wrote about themes of isolation, alienation, and authoritarian oppression. His best known work includes the short story "The Metamorphosis", in which the main character transforms into a beetle, as well as "In the Penal Colony", "The Hunger Artist", and the novels The Trial, The Castle, and the unfinished Amerika. Also of note were the various autobiographical observations and literary ideas culled from his many journals as well as his famed "Letter to His Father", in which he attempted to explain their strained relationship and his emotional peculiarities. Kafka was born in Prague in 1883. Although Kafka was born a Jew he complained of feeling little in common with other Jews.

He attended synagogue but four times a year, spoke mainly German (although Czech had been the language of his childhood), and had little cultural involvement with the Jewish community, with the exception of Jewish theater groups. His middle class bourgeois family aspired to upward mobility and acceptance into the German mainstream. As outlined in "Letter to His Father", Franz Kafka's father, Hermann Kafka, was a major influence in the writer's life. Generally portrayed as large, loud, volatile, and domineering, Hermann Kafka was a self-made man who had risen from poverty to entrepreneur shopkeeper. The younger Kafka often felt he had more in common with his mother's side of the family. Kafka's mother, Julie L�wy, was the second child of a well-to-do cloth merchant and brewer, and her relations were more accustomed to a calmer, more genteel approach to life. Kafka also felt life might have been different if his father's rage might have been spread amongst other sons; however both his younger brothers, George and Heinrich, died when barely out of infancy, and it was left to Franz alone to struggle with the mantle of his father's expectations and frustrations.

Of his three sisters -- Gabrielle (Elli), Valerie (Valli), and Ottilie (Ottla) -- it was the youngest sister, Ottla, whom Franz loved the most, and whom Herman Kafka liked the least. As a youngster Franz Kafka was a voracious reader and enjoyed putting on plays for his sisters. After completing his primary studies, he went on to study law at Charles Ferdinand University (better known as the University of Prague). After graduation he took a position as a insurance agent, a job he retained until weakness from tuberculosis forced him to retire. Meanwhile he began writing on the side, and even had a few things published. But he remained self-deprecating about his writing, as he was about himself in general, and on his death bed asked his close lifelong friend Max Brod to burn all his unpublished works, including journals and correspondence. It was a promise Brod did not keep. Instead Brod, who had always been impressed with Kafka's literary abilities, edited a portion of what remained and had it published. Interest in Kafka's work soared and, over the years, has continued to garner a following.

While Kafka holds a considerable following among existentialists, who find in his gloom and doom anxiety about life an expression of deepest truth (that we are meaningless and alone, yet can't help but yearn for it all to matter), he also finds sympthetic response among magical realists and others who favor an absurdist, surreal representation of life. Kafka himself attributed much of his outlook on life to the affects of the relationship with his father. In Letter to His Father (1919) he stated: "My writing was all about you; all I did there, after all, was to bemoan what I could not bemoan upon your breast. It was an intentionally long-drawn-out leave-taking from you." His work was often fraught with cold, authoritarian figures that persecuted and threatened for reasons barely understood and often unexplained -- a situation which perfectly summed up Kafka's childhood sense of his own father. Illness and physical limitation also plagued Kafka, yet another senseless extrusion of suffering which implied to him a callous universe or perverse creator. In addition to the tuberculosis that had first appeared in 1917, Kafka experienced frequent bouts of insomnia, migraine headaches, boils, constipation, and other ailments.

He was a hypochondriac and possibly an anorexic, as his weight suffered wild fluxuations and his dietary peculiarities progressed through prodigious consumption of unpasteurized milk (a possible source of infectious tuberculosis) to a completely vegan diet. His attitudes toward sexuality was also marked by extreme neurosis. Unable to reconcile his physical urges (which were visited upon prostitutes and loose women) with his romantic longings, he had a series of prolonged, probably chaste, engagements that invariably ended in his breaking off the relationship. Despite this fact, and despite his being overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing, he was much liked by friends (including women friends) for his gentle, cool demeanor, his wry wit, and his obvious intelligence. He was further viewed not as weak and repulsive, his own fear, but as boyishly good looking, as well as neat and austere. Franz Kafka died in 1924 from complications related to tuberculosis. It has been noted that due to the great pain in his throat, from this condition, he was unable to eat and barely to drink in his last days.

He often complained of thirst in his letters home to his father, and at the end may have simply starved to death. His body is buried in Prague, in the Jewish section of the Strasnice cemetery. His mother and father are interred beside him. All three of his sisters were killed in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Father: Hermann Kafka (b. 1852, d. 1931) Mother: Julie Löwy (b. 1856, d. 1934). Brother: Georg (d. infancy) Sister: Gabrielle ("Elli", d. WWII concentration camp) Sister: Valerie ("Valli", d. WWII concentration camp) Sister: Ottilie ("Ottla", d. WWII concentration camp) Girlfriend: Felice Bauer Mistress: Grete Bloch (friend of Felice Bauer, claimed to have borne Kafka's child) Mistress: Milena Jesenská-Pollak (writer) A Short Biography of Franz Kafka Tweet Franz Kafka Biography Franz Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speaking Jewish family on July 3, 1883 in Prague, Bohemia, now the Czech Republic.

Franz at the age of 5 Franz was the eldest of six children. He had two younger brothers who died in infancy and three younger sisters (Gabriele (1889–1941), Valerie (1890–1942), Ottilie (1892–1943), all of whom perished in concentration camps. His father, Hermann Kafka (1852–1931), was described as a huge ill-tempered domestic tyrant, who on many occasions directed his anger towards his son and was disrespectful towards his escape into literature. Kafka's father was a businessman who established himself as an independent retailer of men's and women's fancy goods and accessories, employing up to 15 people. All his life Kafka struggled to come to terms with his domineering father. Kafka's mother, Julie (1856—1934), was the daughter of a prosperous brewer and was better educated than her husband. She helped to manage her husband's business and worked in it as much as 12 hours a day. The children were largely raised by a series of governesses and servants.

Education From 1889 to 1893, Franz attended the Deutsche Knabenschule, the boys elementary school in Prague. He was sent to German schools, not Czech, which demonstrates his father's desire for social advancement. His Jewish upbringing was limited mostly to his bar mitzvah and going to the synagogue four times a year with his father, which didn't give him much to go on. In 1901 he graduated from the Altstädter Gymnasium, the rigorous classics-oriented secondary school with eight grade levels. He did well in school, taking classes like Latin, Greek and history. Dr. of Law, age 23 After secondary school he went on to Charles Ferdinand University, where at first he decided to study chemistry, but switched after two weeks to law. In the end of his first year, he met another student a year younger than he was, Max Brod, who would become a close friend of his throughout his life, together with the journalist Felix Weltsch, who also studied law. Kafka obtained the degree of Doctor of Law on June 18, 1906 and performed an obligatory year of unpaid service as law clerk for the civil and criminal courts.

Work At the end of 1907 Kafka started working in a huge Italian insurance company, where he stayed for nearly a year. His correspondence during that period witnesses that he was unhappy with his working time schedule - from 8 p.m (20:00) until 6 a.m (06:00) - as it made it extremely difficult for him to concentrate on his writing. On July 15, 1908, he resigned, and few weeks later found more suitable employment with the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. He worked there until July 1922 when he retired for reasons of ill health. He often referred to his job as insurance officer as a "bread job", a job done only to pay the bills. However, he did not show any signs of indifference towards his job, as the several promotions that he received during his career prove that he was a hardworking employee. In parallel, Kafka was also committed to his literary work. Later Years In 1912, at the home of his lifelong friend Max Brod, Kafka met Felice Bauer, who lived in Berlin.

Over the next five years they corresponded a great deal, met occasionally, and twice were engaged to be married. Their relationship finally ended in 1917. In 1917, Kafka began to suffer from tuberculosis, which would require frequent convalescence during which he was supported by his family, most notably his sister Ottla. In the early 1920s he developed an intense relationship with Czech journalist and writer Milena Jesenská. In 1923, he briefly moved to Berlin in the hope of distancing himself from his family's influence to concentrate on his writing. In Berlin, he lived with Dora Diamant, a 25-year-old kindergarten teacher from an orthodox Jewish family, who was independent enough to have escaped her past in the ghetto. Dora became his lover, and influenced Kafka's interest in the Talmud - a book of Jewish law. It is generally agreed that Kafka suffered from clinical depression and social anxiety throughout his entire life. He also suffered from migraines, insomnia, constipation, boils, and other ailments, all usually brought on by excessive stresses and strains.

He attempted to counteract all of this by a regimen of naturopathic treatments, such as a vegetarian diet and the consumption of large quantities of unpasteurized milk. Despite all that, his tuberculosis worsened; he returned to Prague, then went to Dr. Hoffmann sanatorium for treatment, where he died on June 3, 1924. His remains are buried alongside his parent's under a two-meter obelisk in Prague's New Jewish Cemetery in Olsanske. Kafka's resting place, Prague Franz Kafka - Modernism Lab Essays Franz Kafka by Pericles Lewis The works of Franz Kafka (1883- 1924 ) seek to pare language and experience down to the elemental. Kafka, a Czech Jew who wrote in German, worked for an insurance company (as did Wallace Stevens on the other side of the Atlantic, but it seems to have done Stevens less harm). He died of tuberculosis in 1924 at the age of 41, generally unknown outside Prague; his fame is due almost entirely to his executor’s refusal to carry out Kafka’s requests to burn all his manuscripts.

Kafka creates black humor out of the disparity between his tightly controlled, self-effacing style and the surreal scenarios he describes: a man turned into a bug, another man arrested but not told what crime he has committed, a penal colony where a machine inscribes people’s crimes onto their skin, an ape who learns to speak but then feels alienated from both the ape and human communities. Although he did write two novels and fragments of a third, his most characteristic work is in shorter forms, including the parable. Kafka’s parables turn on questions of interpretation. He included his parable “Before the Law” in his novel The Trial ( 1925 ) and followed it with a debate between two characters about how it should be interpreted. Another parable, “An Imperial Message,” is addressed to the reader: “The emperor, so a parable runs, has sent a message to you, the humble subject.” The parable goes on to tell how far the messenger must travel to reach the reader, and how impossible it is that the message will ever arrive: “Nobody could fight his way through here even with a message from a dead man.

But you sit at your window when evening falls and dream it to yourself.” Kafka’s stories often seem like messages from a dead man that are so encoded in indirection that they may never reach their recipient. The Trial was published in English translation in 1930 , and many English writers of the 1930s turned towards forms of parable partly under Kafka’s influence. Kafka’s own works address politics only indirectly, although they frequently feature injustice administered by bureaucrats. For politically inclined writers of the 1930s, however, the parable offered the opportunity to address political concerns in an alternative, fictional universe. Kafka shared with James Joyce a fascination with the status of fiction, but whereas Joyce’s late novels are all-encompassing and overflowing, Kafka’s fictions are pared down and cryptic. Both represent aspects of modernism, its expressionistic affirmation and its ascetic control. [1] ↑ This page has been adapted from Pericles Lewis's Cambridge Introduction to Modernism (Cambridge UP, 2007), pp. 174-175.

Question: Franz Kafka wrote in German what nationality was he?
Answer: Czech